Getting the best tone or quality of sound from an acoustic guitar is always a challenge, no matter how long you’ve been playing. There are many variables and most of them are subtle. Consistency plays into it too – when you achieve the tonal quality you’re looking for it takes great concentration and focus to find it time and time again. Fortunately, most of those variables are identifiable. Here are a few that I do my best to be conscious of. I don’t claim to be successful all the time but if the music isn’t sounding quite right at least I have a pretty good idea of what I’m doing wrong! Attack: In the simplest sense this is often a question of how much force is being used when I play. Some players are very aggressive and play “hard.” There are times when this is necessary and even desirable but usually moderation is a better approach. Hard strumming and single note picking requires tightening of the wrist and forearm, and with that some loss of control and accuracy, for most players anyway. If your guitar is strung with light gauge strings and the action is relatively low, this also leads to string buzzes and pick noise. Even an expensive, high quality guitar sounds bad when resonance and complex tonal quality is buried under extraneous noise. If you’re a player who needs or wants to play in a loud and aggressive style, at least use medium gauge strings and set the action a reasonable distance above the fretboard. Or better yet, use electronics (on board pick-up or a microphone, or both) to get the volume you need. Using a moderate attack not only sounds better but it’s less fatiguing too! I read a profile of the great Tony Rice, arguably the finest modern bluegrass style soloist and the writer was amazed by how light a touch Tony used when playing both complex single note runs and while strumming. I have absolutely no doubt this contributes to his fluid, clean style. Strumming/pick technique: I believe this is the single, most important variable in achieving the best possible sound. Many guitarists begin using thin picks. While there is no doubt that thin picks are easier to control than thicker ones, what players often do not realize is that they’re relying on the flex of the pick to do what their wrist should be doing – turning slightly with each stroke, both down and up. I was one who started with thin picks and while playing back-up guitar for fiddler Marie Rhines I soon found that I was breaking a half-dozen or more picks every time we performed. It was so bad that I took to taping a small piece of paper on the upper side of my guitar that I tucked a few spare picks into so I could toss away a broken one and grab a new one mid song without breaking the beat (hopefully!). Worse than that, the thin picks sounded, well, thin. The plastic clicking of the thin picks was just as apparent as the sound of the strings on my Martin D-28 and it was annoying to say the least. Finally I forced myself to move up to medium gauge picks. It took some getting used to but in a short amount of time I found that my strumming and single note playing was “looser,” I wasn’t breaking picks anymore and the tonal quality was vastly improved. It was also a revelation to me at a bluegrass festival we did to hold a pick used by the great Doc Watson – it was a heavy gauge, genuine tortoise shell pick with no flex whatsoever. And if there has ever been a flat picker who had a cleaner tone than Doc, I’ve never heard him! I now use heavy gauge small teardrop shaped Fender “jazz” style picks and I think the tone I get is the best it can be. How the pick is held is another very important variable. Never “point” with a pick; it should extend (slightly!) below the thumb at about a 90-degree angle and it should meet the string with the tip FLAT into the string, not angled toward its side. Players sometimes turn the pick slightly so the tip kind of slides over the string, which allows for less resistance. While this is easier than a flat attack it makes for a duller, muffled tone. You should also experiment with different pick materials and shapes – there are literally hundreds of different styles available and one of them will surely affect your tone quality for the better. If you’re a finger-style player you will need to develop “the touch,” which is the perfect angle of attack on each string using the tips of your fingers and a corner of your thumb. This assumes you’re looking for a clear tone and not the purposefully muffled sound that blues players like. I tell my students to try to have the index, middle and ring finger pick across (not under!) the treble strings at about a 45-degree angle. Classical guitarists or anyone who uses fingernails to play should angle their wrist up so the nail strikes the string in much the same way as I described above when using a flat pick – straight, or flat into the string. This minimizes the sound of the nail scraping across the string. Pure classical technique encourages draping the arm over the guitar (with the guitar held on the left leg, assuming you’re a right-handed player) and the guitar elevated by placing the left foot on a small stool. This way the fingernails can attack the strings from an absolutely flat plane. Applying correct technique that results in clear, clean tone makes even simple strumming, single note flat picking or finger picking sound great. Take a look at how your right hand is affecting your tone. And if everything seems right, you’ll have to blame your left hand for those bad notes. But that’s a discussion for another day! Peace & good music, Gene

Last weekend I was in Dallas visiting with family. One of the things we did was attend the famous State Fair of Texas and we also spent a day in nearby Fort Worth at the Stockyards. A street fair was being held in the Lamar section of Dallas and we attended that too. At all these events I had the opportunity to hear some music, which was quite varied. At the State Fair we entered at a gate next to the main stage (which is huge – many nationally known acts play the fair) and a country group was playing. Now, without getting into the relative merit of many so-called “modern” country acts, they were quite good at what they did although I find the lyrics and arrangements of much of modern country to be boring and totally disposable. But I recognize why this genre is more popular than ever, especially in Texas of course, as it is catchy and requires very little of the listener. Just kick back, have a good time and relate to the central themes of love gained and lost, home towns, pick-up trucks and partying. Include a catchy lyric hook and with the proper promotion and air play you’re pretty much guaranteed a hit. I have no idea who the band was but they were good at their craft, such as it is. On another stage was a Celtic rock band who apparently have been playing the fair for many years. They featured electric guitar, electric bass, keyboards, drums, bagpipes (!) and a young woman on electric fiddle who was quite accomplished. They played original tunes in the Celtic style but also electrified versions of well known Irish tunes like “Red Haired Boy.” The crowd loved them and it occurred to me that adding a driving rhythm section to those old fiddle tunes makes a lot of sense if you want to make that music more palatable to audiences who have only a passing interest in that style of music. Hmmm…. Might be worth putting a group together around here doing that, I thought. As we left, a quite famous Christian rock group had taken the main stage. Now, I won’t deny the chops of the players and the group harmony singing but I gagged on their rap between songs, which focused on their “mission” and blissed out state of mind. Excuse me for being a somewhat jaded New Englander but the whole thing cam across as fake and contrived. Yuck. At the street fair we heard a local but apparently quite popular indie-rock type band that featured not just the usual keyboard/guitar/bass/drum line-up but also a young man honking on a tuba and another guy on cello. I gave them style points for trying some different instrumentation but alas, their songs fell into the trap that so many young indie prog-rock groups do: minor key, medium tempo whiny laments, made even more depressing thanks to the low honking tuba and droning cello. OK, I do remember the angst of youth, but geez, I thought, I know it’s probably desperately uncool to actually write songs about being happy, but GET OVER YOURSELVES! The most interesting music I heard was at the Stockyard area of old Fort Worth. This restored area is on the National Register of Historic Places and in contrast to slick, sleek Dallas, they really play up and embrace the cowboy heritage of the area. A group was playing outdoors on the steps of the Cowboy Hall of Fame called “Cowtown Opry.” Their line-up included an old-timer on accordion, another on harmonica, a rhythm guitarist on a beat up old Fender acoustic, and two women singers playing interesting looking guitars, acoustics with fretboard inlays on the state of Texas. All members dressed in cowboy outfits. Their songs were pure Western music – not to be confused with “country western” – songs of cowboys and riding the range. They were not slick but totally genuine and the younger woman singer also was a good yodeler. Yodeling has a long and respected place in Western music and when I got home and did some research on the group it turns out she did the signing voice-overs for the character “Jessie” in the Disney Toy Story movies. I also learned that Cowtown Opry has a revolving membership that often includes youngsters – their mission is to preserve and promote this unique style of American music. After they finished their performance I approached the lady singers and asked about their interesting guitars. It turned out both were made by local guitar maker and both guitars had names given by their owners, who clearly loved their instruments. Both guitars showed loving use, beat up with finish checking and various dents and dings, and were obviously designed to have that wonderful percussive sound that is so important when strumming this style of music. No finger pickers, these! Even though Cowtown Opry was not in the same league as the other groups I heard over the pervious few days in terms of slickness or technical facility, I loved them for one simple reason. Their music was honest, heartfelt – and REAL. I think the famous Christian rock band on the huge stage at the State Fair of Texas could have learned something from them. Peace & good music, Gene

How often do you change your strings? How often should you? Those are questions I hear a lot from students. Without getting into the specifics of light gauge vs. mediums vs. extra lights (I use Martin Clapton’s Choice phosphor bronze, light gauge, most of the time) I’ll offer kind of a cop-out answer: Whenever you want to! I’ve stated before that the single most significant thing you can do to improve the sound of your guitar is put on a new set of strings. The cost is minimal – about $6 to $10 in most cases – and if you haven’t changed them in a while you’ll be shocked at the improvement in sound. But of course, that is a subjective statement. I know of players who positively hate the brightness of new strings and are convinced there is a “sweet spot” of time when the strings have lost their brightness but still offer good, clean and not muffled sound. Many of these folks tend to own Gibson guitars, for some reason. Perhaps the “woody” sound of most Gibsons is what attracted them to that particular brand in the first place and that sound is somewhat disguised by bright, new strings? Who knows? Being a hardcore Martin guy myself, especially rosewood Martins, I love the combination of cleaner, brighter strings on my Martins, particularly in the bass end. I readily admit that many rosewood Martins get kind of “thuddy” sounding in the bass end in a short amount of time as the strings wear. But oh those first few playing sessions with new strings! Every time I put a new set on my M-36 I’m reminded of why I fell in love with Martins in the first place: resonance, sustain, responsiveness, complex overtones… the signature sound of most Martins, enhanced by new strings. With mahogany guitars you can probably get along with more time between string changes. Although mahogany doesn’t usually have the resonance and complexity of rosewood, it is a much more even sounding wood with great balance between the bass and treble end and that balance disappears slower than with rosewood as the strings lose their brightness. But do you really want brightness? That is a totally personal call. As I am primarily a finger-style player these days, sometimes I find I get too much string noise as I move my fingers with brand new strings, especially when my M-36 is amplified. You know what I mean – that scratching sound from the bass strings as you move from one place to another on the neck. Some string noise in inevitable. I have a recording of the master Segovia and you hear string noise from time to time as he plays. You can minimize string noise with new strings with good, clean technique, but only to a point. After a hour or so playing with new strings I hear it less, so I guess I’m reaching that personal “sweet spot” that I mentioned. I think the bottom line to the question of how often I should change strings has mostly to do with your own personal chemistry. I am blessed with relatively dry hands, that is, I don’t sweat a lot when I play (my hands at least – I sweat plenty in performance if I start screwing up!). However, a former guitarist band-mate of mine has such sweaty hands that I soon refused to let him touch my guitars. He could kill a set of new strings in five minutes, no kidding. ALWAYS play with clean, dry hands if possible. There was a time back in college days when I would leave a set of strings on my old workhorse Yamaha for the better part of an entire school year. If I left the guitar in its case for a week or so the strings would begin to rust. Bad practice, for sure, but there were other things to spend my meager dollars on, usually involving beer and a young lady. And in any case, that poor old Yamaha didn’t benefit sound-wise all that much from new strings anyway. At least I rationalized it that way at the time! So here’s the answer and as they say, “your mileage may vary.” If you play regularly, change your strings about every three months. Assuming you don’t sweat a lot. Wiping off the strings after you play makes some sense but that will only slightly delay the inevitable because you may be just forcing grime into the wound strings. If you play a lot, or are a professional with a really nice guitar, do it more frequently, perhaps once a month. Your guitar and your ears will thank you. Peace & good music, Gene